MISSION DISTRICT / Blues band leaves 'burbs

Ride the Blinds, a blues band from the Peninsula, is Chris Guthridge (left), Nick Cramer and Bill Cramer.

Ride the Blinds, a blues band from the Peninsula, is Chris Guthridge (left), Nick Cramer and Bill Cramer.

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Ride the Blinds, a blues band from the Peninsula, is Chris Guthridge (left), Nick Cramer and Bill Cramer.

Ride the Blinds, a blues band from the Peninsula, is Chris Guthridge (left), Nick Cramer and Bill Cramer.

MISSION DISTRICT / Blues band leaves 'burbs

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Chris Guthridge, 24, and brothers Bill and Nick Cramer formed their band, Ride the Blinds, in large part to escape the confines of suburbia even though "There are too many bands in San Francisco," said Guthridge.

"For one rock 'n' roll band," said the San Mateo resident who is the lead guitarist, "there are probably a hundred others who want to play that slot, that gig, that night."

Their band fills a void because they play the blues, and not many young musicians do that. The band's name is a term that was used by hobos who would hitch box car trains during the days of bluesman Robert Johnson -- a time when the blues was a poor man's art.

"There is definitely an audience out there for our type of music," Guthridge said.

Ride the Blinds began in Nick Cramer's Burlingame bedroom. Nick, 21, is the drummer; Bill, 24, is the bassist and Guthridge's good friend from high school. To start, the trio practiced three nights a week to polish their sound, and soon landed gigs along the Peninsula and in San Francisco, each paying anywhere from $12 to $400.

Between gigs, they wrote music and eventually recorded a 12-song eponymous album a year ago, an endeavor that took two months. It was released by Klepto Records, an independent label in San Francisco started in 2003 by the band's friend, Jeromy Smith. The end result was a sound somewhere between B.B. King and Led Zeppelin.

"The biggest difference between this band and others is their style of playing," Smith said. "They're playing older, more retro-style music, and the younger crowd likes it. The Bay Area is tough, but this band is doing better than most other young bands in the Bay Area."

West Coast Performer Magazine wrote of the trio: "Ride the Blinds had a quality to their musicianship that was reminiscent of the great bands of the past, yet kept fresh like they had been placed in a time capsule and recently re-released out into the wild."

Ride the Blinds' gigs began producing a young, loyal audience. The band says the blues is a lucid, timeless art that incorporates a passion lacking in today's pop culture.

"It's not necessarily a causal relationship between the blues and the signs of success," Bill Cramer said. "It's our familiarity with the blues that adds depth to the rockin' stuff. Since Guthridge is a blues guitar master, he comes up with the most killer rock riffs anybody's heard."

The guitar was a large part of Guthridge's childhood, and he frequently recorded himself in a small studio for fun. After school, Guthridge and Bill Cramer would "screw around" with guitars, playing songs from their parents' generation. After high school, Guthridge stuck with music and only approached his friend after his previous blues band, Mob-L, called it quits.

At first, Bill Cramer was apprehensive about joining a band.

"I was at USF and majoring in politics, and I was planning on law school and thinking of going into the military," he said. "I was on this whole path. It was on a straight arrow."

But it was a combination of Guthridge's encouragement and watching the Rolling Stones on TV one night that caused Cramer to conclude life has multiple trails.

"I know it sounds kind of cheesy," he said. "But here's the Rolling Stones -- this band of old guys who lived this life of fun. Before, I was breaking my back doing what everyone else does."

One of the band's biggest thrills came last summer when Guthridge was out to buy Champagne in a Santa Cruz liquor store shortly before a gig.

With a bottle in each hand, he heard himself on the store's radio singing their song "Shine On."

"I walked up to the counter and asked the worker, 'Is this a CD or the radio?' They weren't really paying attention," Guthridge said. "So I said, 'Hey, this is my band!' They didn't know what I was talking about. They looked at me like I was weird."

During the band's on-air interview with the station, the radio host described his first reaction to the album: "It was kind of there on my desk and I was like, 'I don't know what this is.' I played it and said, 'Oh Lord, these guys got something going on.' "

But besides radio play and interviews, one of the most rewarding aspects for the band is hitting the road to perform. Ride the Blinds has traveled by van four times to the Los Angeles area, where some modest radio play has spurred big turnouts at the shows.

"It's a way to put yourself out there and get comfortable with being a performer," said the band's manager, Mike Carlisi. "Going on the road, nobody knows you, and you got everything to gain. The more you travel, the more guts you got because it's not easy. You let the world chew you up and spit you out."

He said traveling also produces a deeper camaraderie among the band mates.

"You leave as four guys and come back as four family members," Carlisi said. "You come back with some crazy stories."

Such gigs also let them meet diverse personalities in the audience; some are eccentric, some composed, but all are receptive. The audience never gets old.

"After our first ever show (at Studio Z in San Francisco)," Nick Cramer recalled, "some Irish lady came up to me and said, 'I'll always remember this summer. You'll be somewhere someday.' It was weird, but when we got that type of feedback, we knew there was no looking back.

"I remember back in high school, we all had to fill out one of those questionnaires that told us what we would be in life, and mine told me I was going to be a freelance writer. I guess in a way it was right."

Their second album is scheduled for release in early June, said Bill Cramer, and will pick up where the debut left off.

"In the end, the blues and rock 'n' roll is like a father-son relationship anyway," he said.

Hitch a ride

Ride the Blinds plays at 9 p.m. April 29 at The Elbo Room, 647 Valencia St., San Francisco. www.ridetheblinds.com.